


Awake My Soul

by XarisEirene



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Clean Romance, F/M, Feels, Not Canon Compliant - Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Romantic Fluff, Romantic Soulmates, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, Wholesome, reylo forever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:35:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22279525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XarisEirene/pseuds/XarisEirene
Summary: Reviving Ben on Exegol requires more than Rey's strength. It requires a power like life itself, the power of a dyad. But Ben and Rey find themselves bound by something stronger than the Force. A TRoS alternate HEA.* * * Excerpt * * *"It reminds me of your eyes." He slides the ring on my finger. "And to mark our hand-fast."I spin it slowly, admiring the stone’s lustrous vortices of color: translucent layers of gold, brown, and green, veined with black and glowing as if lit from within. I’ve never seen anything like it."Ben, it’s— I—"His fingers catch my chin and tilt my head until I’m staring straight into the soft intensity of his eyes. My cheeks burn. I try to look aside, but he maintains his gentle hold."It was your eyes that caught me first. Alight with innocence and goodness. And hope. You awakened hope in my soul when I had known nothing but hopelessness for a long, long time."
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 22
Kudos: 76





	1. A Kiss and a Smile

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is my small contribution to the vast treasure trove of TRoS fix-its. It’s also my first venture into writing Star Wars, so please overlook my lexical improvisations. Mostly I just wanted to create an alternate ending for Ben and Rey’s love story--told from their POV with a little fluff, a little angst, clean romance and a happy-ever-after. Hope it leaves you with a smile and a warm heart!
> 
> This first chapter picks up with Ben's plummet into Exegol's abyss, retold from his POV...

Ben

_I have failed._ My first thought as I fall. Failed Grandfather. Failed Dad and Mom. Failed Rey. I reach with the Force to stop my descent but power slips like water through my fingers. Palpatine has drained me.

Wind-whipped hair stings my cheeks. How much farther until I am incinerated by dark lightning or shattered in the bowels of a Sith temple?

_Please_. I stretch into the void where I used to feel the Force. _Please, for Rey_. I have never sensed them, but Luke taught they are always with us. If I cannot help her, perhaps the Jedi will.

A gust knocks me against the jagged wall, shredding my shoulder. I tumble down and crash onto an outcropping, one leg snaps back, and the other swings over the ledge. Fire arcs down my spine. Black encroaches at vision’s edge. I retch into the crevasse. Pain lashes and I rage against it.

Then the Force vibrates, twanging for my attention. Words filter through the haze, less than a murmur yet soul deep. _Be still_. I cease fighting and gaze up.

Blue light outlines the overhang, maybe fifty meters above. I hear Rey’s saber sizzling against Palpatine’s lightning. Hope squeezes my chest. She is alive. I must go to her. I must. Even if I die trying.

I call the Force again and this time a trickle meets my fingers. Not enough to jump, but enough to stifle the pain and allow me to climb. I roll off the outcropping and begin to pull hand over hand up the cliff.

Muscles quiver. Fingers abrade. Sweat burns my eyes, but I will not blink. My focus narrows to the crackling blue light. _Hold on. I’m coming_. I speak more to myself than Rey. Even were I able to push words across our bond, I would not risk distracting her.

Three meters from the top I pause to gulp air. Light flares and flashes, and the din increases. Rey’s soul screams with expended energy. She is unyielding but nearly spent. Her agony reverberates in my soul. I shove exhaustion away and swing my body, using momentum to impel myself faster toward the top.

Blazing light explodes outward then retracts with a deafening boom. Thunder rattles the planet’s very foundations. A shockwave crests the ledge, prying my fingers loose and casting me down in a shower of pebbles. I fall a meter, heart pounding, before two fingers catch and I dangle over the abyss.

The light above dims. Rey’s lightsaber is extinguished, but so is the death shadow that marked Palpatine’s essence. Thunder continues to roar, this time from the walls and statues crumbling and crashing, no longer sustained by sinister powers. Boulders bound over the side. I flatten against the wall and they vanish into the black pit. I latch my other arm onto a handhold and pull. Five mighty heaves and my fingers summit.

The next moment I’m over the edge, panting as I take in the devastation. A blast pattern scores the rock wall, radiating out from where the dark throne reigned. Debris coats every surface and dust hangs. The chamber is empty save a single form collapsed in the dirt. Rey. My heart stutters. I see her, but I cannot sense her. _No_. I will not yield to despair. Not now. Not after everything we’ve come through.

I stumble forward, collapse to my knees, then drag my ruined leg behind me. She is white as Crait’s crystalline surface, her lips grey. _Dead_ , the darkness cackles. _Not dead, not dead, not dead_ , I chant with every tortured step.

I scoot beside her, my ravaged leg making it awkward to tug her into my arms. Her skin is clammy. I lean over her face. No pulse. No breath. _Dead_ , the dark revels. Temptation beckons. I have walked in darkness half my life. Her own grandfather reversed death. I could find a way to bring her back. I could.

Her peaceful face accuses me, and I crush her to my chest. No. I have not forsworn evil only to embrace it again. I will not dishonor her sacrifice. I will never again deny who I am. If only I could breathe my life into her. She should live, not me. Kylo Ren may be vanquished, but that does not absolve me of monstrous crimes and unspeakable acts. I would lay down my life for her—she who has been hope and light, compassion and strength, she who has saved this galaxy. Saved me.

I peer into the chamber’s twilight depths, physical eyes unseeing, vainly seeking the Masters. No help comes. I settle her across my legs, support her head in one palm, and press my other to her waist. Memory rises with the touch. I was dying and she healed me. Her fingers just there, knitting closed the mortal wound I received at her hand, scars reverting, darkness unraveling and light breaking through the seams. Her tears coursing with seawater. Vivid emotion searing across our bond: regret, heartbreak, determination. Love. How is it possible she could love one such as I?

I close my eyes, sink into the Force. It wells up within and around, a sea of light buoying my haggard soul. I pray it will be enough. I slow my breathing, uncertain how to proceed. A vision appears. I am standing before a stone table draped in white linen and set with the three goblets of an Alderaan hand-fast ceremony. I know what I need to do, Force grant me the strength. I lift my goblet, pass over the middle cup, and pour its meager contents into Rey’s. So simple but so little. The last drops—the last vestiges of my being—hover on the rim. _Let it be enough_. I tilt it further. Rey’s warm hand covers mine. I open my eyes.

Color is rising in her cheeks like the dawn of a new day. She is my sun, has always been, even when I battled to quench her radiance. Her eyes brighten. She sits up and her mouth pulls into a hesitant, disbelieving smile. I want to weep, I want to shout. But my heartbeat is fading, the blood slowing in my veins. I study her face, not wanting to forget the smallest detail. If only I can carry her image to the stars. She is beautiful and alive. It is enough.

“Ben,” she says. Three letters imbued with reverence, gratitude, and love. My name bestowed by her voice. A declaration. A benediction. Who I was born to be.

I long to speak but cannot find the breath. Her fingers cradle my cheek and curl into my hair. She burns like fire against my cooling skin. Then her lips meet mine and every cell whispers _yes_. We are one for this moment in eternity.

She pulls away, searching my eyes. I have nothing left. No words. Nothing I can push across our bond. I have poured myself out. I am empty. And I am filled, knowing she has won and she will live. I will be with her, if the Force allows. It is enough. So I give her all that remains: I smile.


	2. The Hand-Fast

Rey

_His smile._ Such a smile. A shiver rushes through me.

Ben smiles with the bright of a thousand whirling stars and I spin with him. Every glimpse the Force has granted coalesces in this moment. Every hope fulfilled. Here is the man who haunts my dreams, who calls to my soul, who shares my very life. Such a strange paradox—to know him as well as I know myself and yet not know him at all. But there is no fear.

His eyes crinkle and the barest chuckle bubbles to his lips. A breath of shared joy. This— _us_ —we are meant to be together. We will stand or fall together. My heart skips and sings like the _Falcon_ leaving atmosphere. I am giddy with anticipation. We stand on the cusp of something breathtaking, something unimagined. Together. 

I search for words to explain, but his mouth slackens. I clutch his hand. He slumps backward and I ease him to the ground. Foreboding presses against my heart. What has he done? His form begins to fade. I close my eyes and follow him into the Force. His light speeds away from my grasp, reduces to a pinpoint, winks out. I stretch. If I could just—

Somewhere outside time and space I tumble to a halt. Ben faces me, pale and motionless, silent as vacuum, his life force dim and flickering. I fight down panic. The table beside us holds two goblets sparkling atop its intricately woven cloth. A third floats weightless between Ben’s hand and the floor, as if it has slipped from his grip. Droplets of silver liquid hang suspended between us, shimmering in the starlight. 

I snatch my cup from the table and it sloshes. I reach for Ben’s fallen goblet, but an image flashes through my mind. He has poured out his life for me, and there is not enough for us both. I answer his memory: _Then we will become one with the Force together_.

His faint _no_ registers, but the center chalice grabs my attention. I've read about this, the Alderaan hand-fast. Soulmates unite their individual cups in the binding chalice and vow to join hearts and lives forever.

_Together_.

There's no need to consider. I seize the chalice and dash my cup’s contents into its crystal depths. _Together_. A dyad. Two that are one. Not life halved, but life doubled—more than doubled—life multiplied with exponential power. If our dyad could restore the Emperor, then surely it can restore Ben.

Though he cannot ask again, this time I yield to his heart's cry. "I will take your hand." I lift the hand-fast chalice between us and speak the first half of the vow. "My life is yours."

He repeats the vow in voiceless assent, whispering in my soul. Slowly, ever so slowly, he sends his last wobbling drops drifting toward the chalice. I shift to catch them. They plink in the unnatural quiet, bend the surface tension, break through and dissolve. Our life force mingles and fuses. Rings expand—and settle. Nothing happens. No explosion of vitality, no blinding array. Ben remains frozen.

I step closer and fit his icy fingers around the chalice so that we clasp it together. And together we lift it toward my lips. I stare into his eyes and finish the vow. "Your life is mine."

“Stop.”

I whip my gaze over my shoulder toward the sound.

Master Luke stands on the other side of the table, glowing with blue light and palm upraised. “Stop and think, Rey,” he says. “There is no going back. You will be bound forever.”

I blink. “We are already.”

“By the Force.” His hand slashes down. “But not by choice.”

Luke is wrong. We are bound by the Force, yes, but we have already chosen. We are bound by love—a love that lays down one’s life, that surrenders all, that sacrifices everything. But I don’t voice this. I smile. “Then I choose Ben.”

I lift the chalice and drink, and together we guide it to Ben’s mouth. _Your life is mine_ , his vow echoes again in my heart and he drains it.

“It is done.”

I startle. The voice comes from my right this time. Leia's Force-ghost is radiant, her resplendent robes befitting a princess—or a priestess.

“Children.” She places a glowing hand on each of our cheeks, tenderness belying her words. “You must hurry.”

“Mom—” Ben speaks, emotion quavering. I gasp with relief at hearing his voice, blink away the sudden moisture that clouds my eyes.

“My Ben.” Leia tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. “Welcome home.” She glances up and her brow furrows. Then she winds her mantle over my hands and Ben’s, still joined around the chalice.

“No!” Luke cries. “There’s no time.” The air hums with urgency.

Leia speaks the final hand-fast blessing.

The floor shudders and the roof fractures above our heads. We are back amidst Exegol’s devastation. I thrust out my hand in the same instant I look up. Ben reaches simultaneously and together we Force-catch the caving ceiling.

“Run!” I yell.

We dodge and sprint through the shadows, releasing our hold once we clear the throne room. Stone slabs drop in rumbling and roaring cacophony. The temple disintegrates around us, but new life is surging through me, through him, and building between us in perfect resonance. We reach the hall of statues. Giant heads and arms topple. We wield the Force together in a dance, an effortless synchronization, clearing our path. We duck and jump. Energy flows as if we are two legs to the same body. Dust billows up, masking the glimmer high above that maps our escape. I cough. Ben’s consciousness tugs mine and I leap, up and up and up and over. We pound toward daylight and stoop as the gap closes. We roll clear just as the structure slams down behind us.

I huff and widen my eyes at Ben.

He grins. “That was—”

“I know.” My heart is still racing and my feet follow. A Star Destroyer dives bow first toward the ground. We must leave this planet. I run toward his TIE Fighter. He runs toward Luke’s old X-Wing. The conflict in our wills jars us both to a halt.

“We won’t fit.” I bellow over the ruckus.

“It’s this,” he waves at the X-Wing, “or be shot down.”

“Trust me,” I shout and resume running toward the TIE. I throw images at him faster than words. _I’ll clear us with the fleet, we’ll regroup at the Resistance base, I’ll make Finn and Poe understand. We’ll figure it out together._ I spring atop the cockpit and turn back. Ben’s not there.

The X-Wing lifts off.

My arms crumple to my sides. _Do you even know how to fly that thing?_ It’s a silly question but I’m angry—and maybe afraid. Afraid for him. For us. For the choice he’s making and when I’ll see him again.

He responds with a blip of humor and a memory—a young Ben Solo at the controls in his uncle’s lap.

_Of all the infuriating—_

_I trust you, Rey._ His words wash through my mind in a flood of peace. _Now you have to trust me._

* * *

Dodging fire and finding Poe in the melee should be more difficult than it is, but the TIE Fighter is responsive and nimble. My hands operate the controls by instinct even as something like numbness overtakes my emotions.

He’s gone. Ben’s gone. He’s still present in my soul—a warm beacon in the Force—but I sense the moment he jumps to hyperspace. Not that parsecs have any bearing on our ability to communicate, but I don’t even know how to activate that bond. It just happens.

The console bleeps, I evade another blast, and hail Poe.

After I verify my identity, he clears my TIE with the Resistance. His relief and exhilaration are palpable. By contrast, Finn sounds oddly distant, but maybe it’s just the comms. We’ll finish here and reunite on Ajan Kloss.

And what of my reunion with Ben? I sigh and study his fighter’s gleaming tech, trace my fingers across the controls as if by touching them I could touch him. How well do I know him? Palpatine, Snoke, the First Order have controlled and defined his life since youth. Luke’s warning repeats in my memory. I shake the doubts away. I may not know Ben—not yet, not fully—but I know everything that truly matters. And I am not so naïve to mistake his turn to the light for a culmination when really it is a commencement.


	3. The Turning

Rey

On Ajan Kloss, I step from the forest’s shade into brilliant jubilation. Hugging, crying, laughing, kissing assail my senses from every side. I beam.

Triumphant elation rises, crests and falls to profound relief. The Final Order will not rule the galaxy. A sea of emotion rolls through the Force, pulls at me like the mighty swells on Kef Bir. I resist at first, before succumbing to ride its turbulence.

It sweeps me up and straight into Poe’s waiting arms. Finn hesitates before he joins our embrace. I bury my face in their shoulders—these first friends of mine, friends who have stood beside me even when they couldn’t understand. Gratitude for their faithfulness overwhelms, and I cry and laugh against their sweat-stained clothes.

The sun lowers and shadows lengthen. I exchange back-pounding hugs with Chewie, tweak BB-8’s antenna, receive Lando’s congratulations, trade tender words with Rose, and greet more teammates than I can count. Stories tumble out—everyone bubbling to share their role in the great victory—endless stories of bravery and sacrifice, of cunning and chance. I listen and nod and smile until my cheeks ache.

When asked about my conquest, I shake my head, defer the telling to another day. How can I relay what happened in the heart of Exegol?

Evening passes into night. The weary Resistance passes grudgingly into sleep.

I pace the base’s perimeter and swap silent nods with the sentries. In the stillness before dawn, Leia’s grotto calls and I slip through the camp into its silence. I kneel, clasp my hands across her empty bier, and rest my face on my forearms. The posture of a supplicant. _Be with me_ , I whisper into the Force and repeat like a mantra, _thank you, thank you, thank you_. Words are inadequate, but the Jedi can plumb my sincerity. I am humbled. Indebted. I picture Han, Luke and Leia, who died that their dream—our dream—might live.

And I yield to sorrow. The sorrow that has tugged like an undertow in the swells of jubilation. I let it pull me under, pull me down into the depths. My lungs fill with water and I drown in darkness. I drift, weightless and unresisting, allowing the cold to sear my bones. So much death, so many lives lost. I see this is the balance to the victory of life, the knowledge that it comes at the steepest cost. A knowledge I must never forget.

“And so much of that death on my hands.” Ben’s ragged voice hauls me back to the surface, his Force-presence through our bond as familiar as my own heartbeat. “Is there any atonement?”

I don't have an answer, but neither can I let it pass. “That wasn’t you. That was—that was…”

“Kylo Ren.” Bitterness laces his tone. “You can’t even speak his name. _My_ name.”

“Ben—”

“Choice, Rey. Behold whom you have chosen.”

Perhaps he spreads his arms wide, but I can’t see in the dark.

“Kylo Ren was my choice,” he continues, his bitterness increasing. “He was always my choice. Anytime I could have chosen to leave, to recant—”

“You did.” I stretch my fingers toward him, longing to offer comfort, but he sits out of reach, draped in shadow. “You did turn.”

“But too late.”

“Not for me,” I whisper. _You turned in time to save me._

He falls into the moonlight, knees pressed to the other side of the bier, forehead bowed into the bowl of his palms. The posture of a penitent. “Too late for my dad. For my mom. Too late for the hundreds who died at my hand and the thousands who died at my command.” Agony muffles his speech. “Too late, too late, too late.”

His grief assaults me like a Jakku sandstorm. He weeps, convulses with gut-wrenching sobs. I sense his mortification that I should witness his weakness. He nudges me to leave. But I press my head beside his, until his hair tickles my ear, until my cheek wets with his tears. I wrap my arms as far as they’ll reach across the breadth of his heaving shoulders. _Don’t be ashamed. I love you. Repentance is strength, not weakness._ Our sorrows merge, our comfort reciprocates, our breath harmonizes. Until our hearts beat as one, arms linked across his mother’s bier, souls linked across the stars.

“Rey?”

I wake to my name but not to Ben’s voice. I lift my head from its hard pillow and squint.

Finn stands at the entry. “Poe’s looking for you. He wants to debrief.”

“I must have fallen asleep.” _In Ben’s arms._ I trail my fingers across the sheet, still sensing his warmth.

Finn’s eyes narrow and he glances around the cave. “You alone?”

“As you see.” My neck prickles. “Why?”

He shrugs as he turns away. “Just a feeling.”

I run to catch up with him, place a restraining hand on his shoulder. “What feeling?”

He halts and turns. “Something happened on Exegol. I felt it. You were gone. Like a light switching off, and then back on. As if—as if you died and when you came back, you—”

“You’re Force-sensitive, Finn!” I exclaim and raise my palm to slap his.

He flinches and projects the same discomfort I sensed in the TIE Fighter and in his hesitation at our reunion. Something like suspicion and— No, I must be wrong.

“You’re afraid of me?” I ask, incredulous.

He leans forward and hisses. “Because you feel like _him_. You’re Rey, but you’re also him. It’s like he’s _with_ you.”

“Ben?” I gape. “You can sense Ben?”

“Who’s Ben?” Finn throws out his hands in agitation, almost spitting in anger. “I mean _him_. I would recognize his—the sense of him—anywhere. You know, Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the First Order?”

My jaw snaps shut. I see now what Ben saw first. He will be chased across the stars, hunted down, tried if he’s lucky, tortured if he’s not, and executed for crimes against the galaxy. I fold my arms and stiffen my back. “He saved my life.”

“Who?” Finn glares back. “Kylo?”

“He turned like I saw that he would. I did die, and Ben Solo brought me back.” I should be patient with Finn, not irritated, but he's being obtuse. He watched Han’s death, witnessed Kylo Ren and Ben Solo’s shared identity. “I wouldn’t have defeated the Emperor, I wouldn’t be standing before you if it weren’t for Ben. We owe him everything.”

“And you think that should excuse him?” Disdain creases his brow.

“No.” I press my lips together. “But he turned—he changed—and I choose to forgive.” _I choose love_.

“Rey, listen to yourself.” He throws his hands in the air again. “Come on. Poe’s waiting. He’s never going to believe this.”

The rumors spread as fast as crash coordinates among scavengers. How Kylo Ren is dead. How Ben Solo saved my life. I don’t correct the misconceptions. It’s true enough. Kylo Ren _is_ dead and no one needs to know Ben Solo still lives. At least not now, not yet.

* * *

I stand with Ben in the hand-fast ceremony, our fingers intertwined around the binding chalice. We exchange our vows and drain the cup. New life courses with every swallow, until every cell sings with creation’s harmonics. We are renewed, all that is broken made whole—yet there is more. We have as often strained against our dyadic bond as yielded to it. But in this moment there is a turning toward one another, a merging into something stronger, and along with it this heady rush of sensation, brighter than anything I have known. Something unfamiliar comes into being. I sense it as a slumbering power, elemental and uncharted.

Before I can examine this further, a door swings open.

“Murderer!” Finn leaps into the room, waves his blaster, and commences firing.

I crook my fingers, calling to my lightsaber. Nothing comes to hand. I use the Force to deflect blasts. Why isn’t Ben defending himself?

Finn continues shooting as he advances.

Energy ricochets from floor to ceiling to wall. Too many, too fast. I can’t stop them all.

Ben pivots, shielding me against his chest and hunching his back to Finn. I feel the bolts rip into him like flames blazing across my own shoulders. I scream.

“Rey! Rey!”

I can hardly hear over the screaming.

“Rey, hush. You’re okay.” The words don’t soothe so much as his deep voice and the calm of his Force-presence.

I open my eyes to Ben sitting at the head of my bed.

“Shhh,” he says. “You were dreaming.”

My teeth chatter. “Nightmare.”

He caresses my brow, brushes his fingers through my hair, and I quiet with every stroke. I rest my head against his thigh until I cease shivering and my heart resumes its normal cadence.

“So Finn knows?” he asks.

“Suspects.” I sigh. “He’s Force-sensitive. And scared and angry.”

“Dangerous combination.” He shifts his body and I register the shift in his spirit. “You were dreaming of our hand-fast.”

I welcome the change in topic, relieved to ignore Finn for now. “That moment before your mom appeared. When the Force or our dyad power or our vows restored us and”—I relive the rushing sensation with a flare of embarrassment and bury my face into the space between his leg and my pillow—“made us one.”

"Hey." He nudges my shoulder. “It can't be that bad.”

I burrow deeper until my nose pinches and I can barely breathe. Then he’s there in my mind. _Show me?_ His invitation is gentle and tentative, so opposite that first demanding—

He withdraws immediately. “I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

“No, I didn’t mean to—”

“I hurt you.” His horror filters across our bond. “I can’t even touch your mind without you remembering—forgive me.”

“Ben, no. Wait—”

He shakes his head, his anguish and resolve wash over me, and then he’s gone.


	4. The Healing

Rey

I float deep in the forest, life thrumming all around, from the waking sun nurturing the leaves to the worms aerating the soil.

Agony spears my shoulder. I gasp and tumble two meters onto a bed of rotting vegetation. Ben’s under attack. My heart gallops. I center in the Force, reach for the locus of our dyad, and—and— Fear flings me from the meditation.

_Ben_. I squeeze my eyes closed again, release my breath, and will my strength into his body. Whatever he’s doing, whatever he’s facing, I will be with him. I will be his strength. Power flows in an endless river, not from me alone, but through us together. When I open my eyes, the sun has set, the trees are hulking black silhouettes, and I’m drenched with perspiration.

The report comes when we’re gathered in the open-air mess. A flotilla of First Order ships drifting in space, their command crews slaughtered. Unmistakably scorched by lightsaber.

I clap a hand over my mouth to squelch the cry that threatens.

“That much less we have to hunt down, right?” Someone laughs.

“Here, here!” Another lifts a glass. “To our phantom deliverer!”

I dart for my quarters before they finish the toast.

All I can picture is Kylo Ren wreaking vengeance on his former comrades, black cloak and red saber spinning with unerring ferocity.

I lock my door and pace the cramped space like a caged rathtar. Until I collapse in the desk chair, exhausted.

_Ben_ , my heart cries, _what have you done?_ What have _we_ done? Was it my strength, our strength in the dyad, that enabled him to do this—this abhorrent thing?

And then he’s here. Sitting on my bed. A bloodied and slashed tunic spans his slumped shoulders. Bruises and oozing cuts mar the long planes of his face. His arm’s bent at an unnatural angle and clutched against his side. He raises dark eyes to mine, bleak with despair. Sadness, unspeakable sadness, floods our bond.

I launch across the room, fall at his feet, clasp my forehead to his knees. _What have you done?_

_I want to undo it, undo everything, but there’s no going back._

I don’t know whether he refers to this massacre or all that’s come before. I nearly shout into his mind. _But not like this, never like this._

I want to throttle him. I want to cradle his head against my breast until peace descends.

_I failed, again._ His remorse and self-loathing break over me, recede to weariness and defeat. _And you saved me, again._

_My life is yours,_ I murmur our hand-fast vows, _and yours is mine._

_I would have fallen._ _I—I think I wanted to._ Anguish wrings the confession from him. _After I hurt you, I thought—I couldn’t stop thinking that you are better without me, that we’ll never be free from my past. And if more of the First Order fell with me, then it would be something. Not enough, but something._

I press my forehead harder against his knees and swallow back my accusations.

_And then you were there_. He doesn’t elaborate, but I see it’s the turning point—in the battle and in his heart.

_I need you, Ben_. Pressure constricts my lungs. Perhaps from sharing his barely controlled pain. Perhaps from something like desperation in my soul.

His broad hand rests on my crown, solace in its weight. We sit, unmoving, unspeaking, as the Force eddies around us. Light and dark, bright and shadow, restoring the balance within and between us.

I break the silence first. _The road back is too long and too rough to travel alone. We're meant to do this together._

He presses my head in acknowledgement. Then his wounds overtake all thought.

I squeeze his knee. _Let me heal you._

_Not you. Us. Together_.

I nod. Yes, I suppose we learned that lesson the hard way. I yield to the Force and he is there, our fingers intertwined around the hand-fast chalice. The contents glow, well up, and spill over, flowing into him with healing in its wake. It touches me too, sweeping away my exhaustion. That foreign, untapped power still pulses from the root of our connection. I ignore it and bask. This unity of will and spirit, of mind and soul, moving together with single purpose in the Force—have I ever known greater depths of contentment?

* * *

Knocking penetrates our euphoria. Persistent, loud. I blink to clear the haze and glance at the locked door.

“Rey?” Poe’s voice threads with anxiety. “You in there? You okay?”

“Yes, fine,” I call back, a little breathless. “I was just, er, tired.”

A muttered conversation rumbles on the other side of the door.

I look at Ben, healed but still fouled with grime. _Finn’s out there too._

“This is a little awkward,” Poe clears his throat, “but could you open the door?”

Finn’s voice drones, the words indecipherable.

“Now?” Poe says.

“Sure.” I rise from my knees. “Give me a moment.” I release Ben’s hand. _I don’t know if Finn will see you—like Luke did on Ahch-To._

_Unlikely._

“Rey?” Poe pounds.

“Coming.” I stalk two strides to the door and swing it wide. Finn bursts through and Poe slips in behind.

“See?” Poe glares at Finn. “You’re acting like a crazy person. There’s no one here.”

“But I felt _him_.” Finn searches my room, flings open the closet, bends down to peer under the desk. His gaze centers on the bed, right where Ben sits unflinching, and he points. “There.”

I scrunch my nose. “What's there?”

“Nothing.” Finn bats the air and his arm passes through Ben’s Force-presence.

Ben cocks an eyebrow.

Finn flexes and studies his fingers as if they’ve touched something. “Tell me you don’t feel him.”

“Come on, man.” Poe tugs at Finn’s arm. “You’re making a scene. We’ve bothered Rey enough.”

“No.” Finn shrugs off Poe’s hand and turns on me. “Rey, tell me you don’t feel him. Persuade me I’m the crazy one here.”

I’m tempted. Could a small deception end this conflict and restore our friendship?

_Finn will never believe you if you do,_ Ben says. _"To live in light is to walk in truth, but a lie is a step toward the dark."_

_I_ _can't believe you're quoting Jedi texts._ I answer Ben's mind without looking at him, half-irritated with and half-envious of his extensive knowledge.

_Nothing my own experience didn't teach._ All humor fades from his words and sends a chill through me.

“You’re right,” I speak to both men at once and press a hand over my heart. “Ben’s here. Like I’ve told you before. The Force bound his soul with mine. He’s always with me. He’ll always be with me.”

“You’re both crazy.” Poe pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head. “Come on, Finn.”

They back out of my room, but for the first time I perceive resignation in Finn’s face. The door snicks shut.

_Finn’s going to be okay._ Ben reaches to squeeze my hand and at his touch a vision flares. I see Finn’s path stretching into the Force, the certainty he’ll find his way without me. My path lies with Ben. I sense it like the last chock removed before liftoff. What remains to tie me here?

* * *

"I brought something for you." Ben fumbles in his tunic and opens his fist. "It’s Alderaanian agate, my mother’s."

I look from the ring in his palm to the yearning in his face, its warmth and tenderness magnified through our connection. His smile, tentative though it is, does strange things to my insides.

"It reminds me of your eyes." He slides the ring on my finger. "And to mark our hand-fast."

I spin it slowly, admiring the stone’s lustrous vortices of color: translucent layers of gold, brown, and green, veined with black and glowing as if lit from within. I’ve never seen anything like it.

"Ben, it’s— I—"

His fingers catch my chin and tilt my head until I’m staring straight into the soft intensity of his eyes. My cheeks burn. I try to look aside, but he maintains his gentle hold.

"It was your eyes that caught me first. Alight with innocence and goodness. And hope. You awakened hope in my soul when I had known nothing but hopelessness for a long, long time." His thumb brushes my jaw. "I love you, Rey." His lips brush mine. Tender, fleeting. And then he’s gone.

I touch the ring—the ring of an Alderaan princess, a Resistance general, a Jedi warrior.


	5. The Longing

Rey

Music pervades my senses, sings images into my mind. Aching music accompanies my mother’s tender touch. I cling to her hand, desperate to see her face and hear her voice. She dissipates in mist. Haunting music drifts across Jakku’s dunes. So alone, so afraid. I wrap my arms across my chest and shiver in the heat.

The music marches and crescendos, sinks to near silence, and rises again, vibrating in my very bones. Dissonant chords resolve into agonizing beauty. Our story, mine and Ben’s.

Bright notes, dark notes, every note evokes a memory. Pressure builds until— I gasp awake and blink into the night. Was I dreaming?

The music ends. Raggedly.

“Ben?” I call into the dark.

“I didn’t realize the Force connected us.” His disembodied voice sounds as flustered as his feelings in our bond.

“That music— did you hear that music? What was it?” I roll to my side, bunch my tear-soaked pillow under my head, and catch a faint glimmer across the room. A soft glow limns Ben’s wide back.

He angles toward me. “Forgive me for disturbing you.”

“No, it was… I felt”—I pause to sift the words—“like it brought disjointed things into alignment.”

He nods.

“But that music—” I know the source must come from his side. “What was it?”

He bows his head. Light defines his profile—lowered lashes, bold nose, full lips. And a tangible reserve that prevents me from slipping out of bed and going to him.

“I play.” He sighs. “It does help… realign things.”

Wonder washes over me. “That was you?”

“My mom taught—well, hired tutors to teach me when I was a boy. She thought it might help me manage the Force.” His melancholy seeps into me. “Dad said it helped tame my demons.”

“You miss your parents.”

“I gave up music when I became a padawan. Uncle Luke, he— he didn’t understand.” Ben turns away and a chord sounds, resonates between us with longing. Resonates in the Force. Resonates in the depths of my being.

_I understand._ I whisper into his mind.

He resumes playing and the music surrounds me with his words, his hands, his heart. All else fades away. I am known, held and caressed. Immersed. He murmurs in my soul. _Let me play you to sleep._

When I wake in the morning, I have never felt more rested—or more loved.

* * *

My calves burn by the time I summit. Despite training, I’ve grown soft on Ajan Kloss. If only I could spar with Ben. Someday. Soon.

I break through the trees, clamber over the boulders, and perch on the precipice. Emerald rainforest stretches below, shimmering in the wind and gilded by afternoon sun. Brimming with life. No one will miss me until evening mess. I settle in and peace breezes through my soul.

When I fled Exegol, heart numb with Ben’s desertion, I couldn’t conceive anything except returning to the Resistance. Now, I can’t imagine remaining. I spin the agate ring around my finger. Leia would understand.

I wrap my arms around bent legs and rest my chin on my knees. I miss Ben. His Force-presence is a consolation as inadequate as Jakku’s rain. I need his strength of soul interwoven with mine, not stretched thin across lightyears. I need a decadence of words, to talk and listen when we don’t have to portion our sentences like daily rations. I need him in the quiet and the commonplace as much as the moments wrought with emotion. I need to curl into his warmth with the certainty he’ll be there when I wake. I need to share our life in all its fullness, not this continual caprice and brevity. The ache rends my soul wider with every parting. I need him in flesh-and-blood.

His warm beacon brightens and brushes my spirit. Has my need called him here?

“A credit for your thoughts?” His footfalls near and he lowers beside me.

I toss a rock and it clatters down the cliff. “How much longer?”

“For?”

“For whatever it is you set out to accomplish since leaving Exegol. Until we can be together.”

“Haven’t we accomplished it?” His words are less question than declaration.

My memory skims over the intervening weeks. Over the shift in my relationships. Finn, Poe and the rest—they’re reconciled to my departure as inevitable, even if they don’t understand why I'm leaving or recognize our paths diverged long ago. Over these exchanges with Ben that confirm both his true character and the demons he still wrestles, perhaps always will. Over the turning in my own soul, the healing, the knitting with his. I close my eyes and let it sweep through me—certainty, longing, love. _Yes_.

“I’ll miss my friends, but my life is yours.” I open my eyes. “Waiting here is just marking time. The _Falcon_ is repaired, though you should be warned Chewbacca insists he's coming."

"Uncle Chewie." Ben shakes his head, eyes glinting.

"I finished my lightsaber.” I touch where it hangs at my waist. “I’m ready for whatever’s next as long as it’s with you.”

“May I?” He gestures and I unclip the weapon from my belt. He toggles the power, and a yellow blade sizzles into existence. “Nice.”

He withdraws a matching saber from under his mantle and passes it to me. Humor rumbles in his chest. 

I examine the black grip, less utilitarian than mine, the metal engraved with words and symbols worked in an intricate design. “This must have taken forever.”

“It was a productive way to stay occupied.” This I understand. We share the same intolerance for idleness.

I activate the switch and golden light blazes a shade darker. I chuckle in understanding at his earlier amusement, at the uncanny similarity and how comfortable his crystal feels in my hand. “Not that we should be surprised, two that are one and all.”

Ben's mouth presses into a line as he returns his saber to its holster. “Every step was planned my whole life, the path mapped out and I—I was expected to walk in it, turning neither to the right nor the left. By my parents. By Master Luke. By Snoke—well, the Emperor. These weeks of freedom”—he rolls his neck as if the concept rests uneasily—“I keep looking over my shoulder. But I don’t know what comes next. I don’t know. You have no idea how difficult that is.”

“Well, ‘I don’t know’ sounds like a good place to start.” I unfold my legs over the edge and swing them like a child, like the scavenger girl who crafted a Rebellion doll and dreamed her parents would come home. “We can always dream.”

So we fantasize about the future. We could build a Jedi temple or start a new order altogether—an order of healers. And maybe musicians, I add. Ben blushes. Train Force-sensitives like Finn. Be the parents our own could not, though _that_ prospect nearly sends me into a tailspin. Chase down Sith and their ilk, combat evil and darkness wherever we find it—we still have the wayfinder. Answer the galaxy’s summons, when it comes, as it will. Perhaps just disappear to Ahch-To, the two of us, alone. Or something else entirely that the Force has yet to reveal. We don’t decide except to choose the date we’ll meet on Tatooine, which, we agree, is the first step.

Anticipation envelops us in a bright cloud. I revel in it, tingle with the conviction that our calling beckons, just beyond the horizon, breathtaking with unimagined possibility. Together.

I'm lost in this awareness, when something touches my hand and blinding energy erupts through the Force. I jerk away and stare at Ben.

He frowns. _What’s wrong?_

_I don’t know. You startled me._ I inhale and exhale measured breaths to mute the buzz of power.

Ben stands and paces, his agitation an echo to my own.

My senses are so heightened that I track his every movement behind my back. When he stops, I twist around to find him silhouetted by blue sky, the wind fluttering his tunic and flirting in his dark hair, his pensive focus fixed on something hidden from me on his side of the bond.

When we’re in the Force or sparring, our disparity in size diminishes, but in this moment, looming above me as he is, I feel his towering height, the span of his chest, the strength in his limbs like a visceral thing. I study his face. Sun and shadow highlight the strong angles that shift so expressively from solemn to jubilant. The penetrating gaze that pierces to my very soul. The once tormented eyes, now calm and gentle.

My fingers tremble, aching to touch him.

His attention snaps back to me.

“Where are you, anyway?” I ask aloud, embarrassed to be caught staring. Did he track the direction of my thoughts? 

“Naboo. At my grandmother’s estate, overlooking a lake. Where she and my grandfather”—he draws a breath and a floral scent rife with yearning wafts through our bond—“where they fell in love. We’ll visit someday. It’s beautiful.”

He’s beautiful. I clutch my traitorous fingers.

“I’m not going to pry, Rey. I’m here when you’re ready to share.” He returns to sit beside me and reaches toward my hand but pulls back with a grin. “I’ve heard ‘I don’t know’ is a good place to start.”

Why am I reluctant? Hasn’t Ben searched my soul, seen my deepest hurts and fears, known the truth of myself before I did—and loves me still? Haven’t I seen him at his worst—and love him still?

“I don’t know.” I splutter. “There’s this— this feeling inside me or between us, this untried power, slumbering until it flares to life around you. Linked to being a dyad, maybe? Or not. But I’m afraid. I fear that if I yield, if I can’t control it, then I don’t know what will happen.” My pitch rises, a trifle hysterical even to my own ears. “I mean, I might shoot lightning from my fingers.”

He chuckles.

“It’s not funny.” I glare at him through a smile I can’t restrain. “I’m trying to be honest here.”

“I can handle that.” He dons a serious mask. “The lightning, I mean.”

Tension dissolves. I want to tackle him, pin him to the rock and— and— I’m unsure what exactly.

He tugs me under his arm in a fraternal squeeze. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out together.” His heart beats against my ribs, steady, reassuring.

The wind gambols around us, light frolics in the leaves far below. His heart increases pace. “I have an idea. May I show you something?”

I nod.

Feeling explodes across our bond, intoxicating and electrifying, that exact power I’ve been fighting—except fiercer. I brace against its tempest, sense it calling, an answering gale rising in me, then the storm ceases as if he’s closed a door. I gulp, relieved and disconcerted.

“Is that,” his nostrils flare, “is that like—”

“Yes,” I exclaim, not waiting for him to finish. As baffling as when I first sensed the Force. "But what _is_ it?”

Ben turns and I’m obliged to scoot apart. He takes my hand, traces the lines on my palm, raises sober eyes to mine.

“Well?” I waggle my brows.

_Rey, that’s… that’s desire—your desire for me and mine for you. The longing to fulfill our vows, to unite, to be one in body as we are in heart and soul and mind._

_Oh. I see._ I swallow, as self-conscious with his candor as I am to have been mystified by something so patently, elementally simple. I’m a dolt, but what can you expect when you grow up under a rock, or in my case, a derelict AT-AT?

_Don’t._ He lifts my palm, presses soft lips to the sensitive skin inside my wrist, and sets my soul ablaze. _I’d rather have your purity of spirit. It's right and good, but the longing can wait._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was listening to Gabriel Faure’s “Requiem” when I wrote this chapter. That introductory music scene wasn’t strictly necessary, but it spoke to me. I don’t imagine Ben’s music was anything like Faure, but I like to think it was at least as evocative.


	6. An End and a Beginning

Ben

The _Millennium Falcon_ touches down on Tatooine like a peace offering from my father. _Look what I brought you, kid._ But instead of a trinket that can never recompense his long absence, he’s delivering something eminently more precious. _Take good care of her_. Though which "her" he means— An image sparks, that trademark twist to his grin, one leather-clad arm slung around Rey’s shoulders and the other patting the _Falcon_.

_Thanks, Dad. You know I will. Both of them._

I stride into the freighter’s shade, disregard the dust cloud, and park my feet beneath the hatch. I haven’t felt this nervous since, well, probably since the first time I approached Snoke, but that’s an unwelcome comparison. I inhale, cough, try to center myself in the Force. Run a hand through my hair, then clasp it behind my back. Is Rey as eager to see me?

The hatch clanks, an airlock hisses. Could the boarding ramp grind any slower? We’ll have to repair that later. I contemplate a Force-leap through the gap.

The breach widens and she is revealed, poised at the apex, motionless save for the dry wind flapping her white wrappings. Everything in me comes alive. Her presence through our bond is an ephemeral dream compared to this: she’s more compact in person, but I’m struck by her sheer physical reality. She is strength and grace, yes, but she also embodies rightness and fulfillment. Scavenger girl. Jedi warrior. Soulmate. Bound by Force, by vow, by love. My breath hitches.

For an instant I’m transported to that moment before she left Crait. I look through our Force-bond and up the _Falcon’s_ gangway at her, my voice cold while my heart hammers with inadmissible yearning and hope.

“Ben!” Rey cries, calling me back to the present.

She races down the ramp, boots thumping. I brace for impact, but she halts a step away.

“Ben.” She repeats softly. And just as softly reaches to trace my temple, my cheek, pauses at the crook of my mouth. “You have freckles?” Her pitch rises with humor.

They're moles, but I'm not going to correct my sun-sprinkled desert sprite. Besides I’ve always detested them. I turn my head a fraction to capture her hand with a kiss. Her fingers are warm and calloused, her ring cool and smooth against my lips.

She inhales a sudden breath, but her smile ignites.

And then I can’t help myself. My hands burrow into her hair and I kiss the crinkle of her eyes, the curl of her ear, the camber of her chin. She laughs again and throws her head back in joyful abandon. I trail reverent kisses down the slope of her neck, the valley where it meets her shoulders.

This brings her upright again and for one timeless moment we are lost in the depths of each other’s eyes. Here is comfort in sorrow, strength in need, wisdom in perplexity, unity in joy. Here is home and belonging, light and life. Here is my heart, my soul.

“Rey,” I murmur. Because she is everything.

She melts against me, each arch and curve a seamless match to my frame. Our lips meet and we are one for all eternity. The Force explodes like a star gone nova. Light and heat and energy radiate through every centimeter of my being, of hers. It echoes and escalates in our dyad, resounds with the music of the spheres, surging, soaring, cascading.

When we part, my heart outpaces a hyperdrive. And I swear she’s aglow.

She pats her hair, straightens her triple buns.

Longing for our union sears through me—I contemplate sweeping her off her feet and carrying her straight to the _Falcon's_ stateroom—but I promised her this duty first. “You ready?”

“Here.” She plucks the strap of a pouch slung across her back.

We explore the homestead, seeking the optimal burial site. To distract myself from our greeting, I relate accounts from Luke about his years here, about my namesake Uncle Ben and the droids, and their adventures among the stars.

“Have you reconciled with Luke then?” She balances on a metal sheet and surfs a dune into the half-buried courtyard.

“A little,” I say and Force-jump to meet her at the base. “A beginning, anyway.”

As we rifle through the accessible rooms, I share my interactions with his Force-ghost over the previous weeks. Communing with the Jedi is an affirmation I do not take for granted.

We agree on a nondescript plot. Rey unwinds the mantle. I finger the twin lightsabers in respect, in farewell. I heft my mother’s, sense its crystal humming with life. Her cherished, husky voice greets my ear or maybe my memory. _I love you, Ben. I’m so proud of you._ Her hands press my shoulders and linger. I soak in her touch like an anointing, though only barren desert greets my glance behind.

Rey wipes moisture from my cheek. _She’d be proud of you. They both would._

I exhale a long, slow breath and find balance in the Force, that place where grief and gratitude, love and lament walk hand-in-hand.

Rey re-rolls the shared shroud, her movements deliberate and deferential. We extend our hands together and sink the lightsabers deep into their sandy grave.

I rise, dust off my palms, and meet an aged traveler’s curious stare, her countenance weathered by sun and wind.

“Not many out this way.” Her dromedary nuzzles her hand. “Who are you?”

Rey stands and steps to my side. “Rey and—” She raises both eyebrows at me. We haven’t decided how to disguise my identity.

A telling blue glow draws my attention to the horizon. Rey follows my gaze. Luke and Leia beam—brother and sister. In this moment, I see them not as my mother and uncle, but as Anakin’s children. _Forgive me, Grandfather, for my misguided attempts to emulate you._ But this I can redeem.

_Skywalker_. I speak to Rey's mind, sense her encouragement, and look back to our guest. “Rey and Ben Skywalker.”

Her wizened mouth puckers. She makes some comment about good neighbors, perhaps assuming we’ll stay, and resumes her trek.

Rey nudges my elbow. “Skywalker, huh?”

“Not much of a disguise,” I shrug, “but it felt right.”

“Just what I would have chosen.” She weaves her fingers between mine.

Tatooine’s twin suns scuttle the skyline in a blaze of orange glory. With her free hand, Rey powers on her lightsaber. I join my golden blade with hers in salute. End of day, end of an era. Beginning of a new legacy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’ve made it this far, you’ve probably finished the story. Thank you! There are so many great fics to read. Thank you for the honor of your time. I've previously written JAFF/Pride and Prejudice in the Regency style, but not for several years--so not only was I out of practice, this fandom was also an enormous departure. 
> 
> Thank you for being a partner in the process. I started writing this fic to cope with that painful end to TRoS and to create a satisfying alternate resolution. But I finished it because I knew you were reading. I hope this version of Ben and Rey’s love story moved you in some small way. Here’s to Reylo forever!
> 
> (Lastly, credit/inspiration for this line “comfort in sorrow, strength in need, wisdom in perplexity, unity in joy” goes to The Book of Common Prayer marriage service.)


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